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Transforming the Northwest into Dirty Coal’s New Corridor

The Corporate Doomsday Machine’s (aka the fossil fuel industry)
latest scheme to plunder and ruin the earth for profit involves
transforming the highways, waterways and railways of the Northwest into a
transport corridor for coal.

King Coal’s domestic options are soon going to be limited after Obama
and Lisa Jackson drop the big one on greenhouse gas emissions.
Therefore, with a possible loss in profits, Mr. Peabody’s coal company
needs a new place to sell their dirty black rock. Currently, Asian
markets are more than willing buyers of all things coal. Industry just
needs an efficient way to get it there. Currently, the only west coast
port exporting coal is Vancouver British Columbia. So King Coal wants
more outlets for Powder River Basin coal.

And what’s Schweitzer’s selling? Nothing less than 2011′s real prize–JOBS!
Jobs building the terminal. Jobs working at the terminal. Jobs working
in the coal mines and moving coal to market. In the current economy, the
false dichotomy of jobs vs. the environment sees employment come out on top and industry preys upon those fears.

Other coal companies such as Peabody Energy also have plans to build
more coal export coal terminals on the northwest coast. Exporting coal
to overseas markets will be the emerging environmental struggle.

But don’t think this means east coast coal sources are off the hook.
The Appalachian and mid-western coal barons aim to export lots out of
east coast ports like Norfolk as well.

Fortunately, the Northwest region has a recent serious history of
environmental resistance. Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Idaho
and Montana have all seen decades of strife over logging and mining.